Nasa discovers new mineral in 1969 meteorite: Wassonite

Researchers at Nasa have discovered
a new form of mineral, buried deep within a meteorite that was
recovered from Antarctica more than 40 years ago. It's called
Wassonite, and has been officially approved by the International
Mineralogical Association.

The crystalline mineral is made of two elements: sulphur and
titanium. But its structure is unlike anything that's been
previously observed in nature.

The reason it took so long to discover is that it left an
unimaginably small trace on the comet. The mineral is less than
one-hundredth the width of a human hair or 50x450 nanometers: it's discovery was only made possible by the space
agency's transmission electron microscope, which is capable of
isolating the Wassonite grains and determining their chemical
composition and atomic structure.

The meteorite, given the catchy name Yamato 691 enstatite
chondrite, was found alongside eight others in 1969 from a blue ice
field in Antarctica's Yamato Mountains. The find was so significant that
the US and Japan conducted follow-up searches in the area, and in
the following years, the teams recovered more than 40,000 specimens
between them.

The 4.5-billion-year-old Yamato 691 meteorite likely
originated from an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter It
may even yield more discoveries -- the Wassonite was surrounded by
never-before-seen minerals, which Nasa will investigate next. "More
secrets of the universe can be
revealed from these specimens using 21st century nano-technology,"
said Nasa space scientist Keiko Nakamura-Messenger.

The mineral was named after John T. Wasson, professor at the
University of California. Wasson is a pioneer in meteorite and impact research.